Chapter 229 Changes in the situation in Yazhou

The immigrants on the island will receive supplies about once a week, mainly vegetables, fruits and a small amount of livestock. Since the trade with the North Vietnamese caravans began, rice is no longer a scarce commodity in the Black Earth Port, so it serves as a transit supply station.

Tons of rice are also stored on Fushuizhou Island to prepare for emergencies. Even if supplies cannot be provided for ten days and a half in extreme circumstances, the residents of the island do not need to worry about falling into a food shortage situation.

The "Speed" also brought supplies to the residents. Tao Donglai ordered that most of the meat, vegetables, and fruits on the ship be left to the island residents, leaving only the supplies for the rest of the trip.

It is indeed a hard job to be stationed on such an island for a long time. What the executive committee can probably do is to enable the residents on the island to provide better food. Tao Donglai also promised the residents that they would wait until their stationing period ends.

As soon as they arrived, they were asked to move to Port Victory to settle, which aroused cheers from the residents.

According to the arrangements of the management committee, a small livestock farm has been built on the island, raising dozens of chickens, ducks and eight pigs. However, because it is isolated overseas, the island’s wild animals are in various forms.

Mainly seabirds, there are no carnivorous beasts at all, so there is no need to worry about wild beasts attacking the breeding grounds. This is much better than Victory Port and Black Earth Port - the breeding grounds in these two places are designed to prevent wild beasts from attacking.

Not only were isolation trenches dug around the perimeter, but bamboo and wood picket isolation strips were even specially buried.

On that day, the "Speed" did not rush to travel through the night, but anchored at Fushuizhou Island for one night. As soon as it got dark the next day, everyone got up and set off. After the sailing ship left Fushuizhou Island, it drove at full speed to the southeast.

It was a smooth journey and we arrived in the Yinggehai area that afternoon. Before dark, the "Speed" had arrived at the mouth of the Ningyuan River outside Yazhou. According to the pre-planned schedule, Tao Donglai's inspection was still on the way back.

We have to go to the cliff office, which is also the last stop of this inspection tour.

At noon, Wang Tom used the radio to contact the Cliff Office and informed him of the possible arrival time. As soon as the "Speed" arrived at the mouth of the Ningyuan River, he saw a Cangshan ship of the Ming Navy approaching from the mouth of the river.

Come out - Luo Shengdong, who loves to join in the fun, will never miss such an opportunity to flatter him at close range.

When Tom Wang contacted the Cliff Resident Office today, Luo Shengdong also happened to be drinking tea at the Cliff Resident Office. After boarding the Shanghai ship, Luo Shengdong found that his future suddenly became brighter, and he not only made a lot of money

, and his popularity in Yazhou City has also skyrocketed. Many powerful people know that he has good relations with the Haihan people, and they have used their connections to ask Luo Shengdong to buy Haihan products that are in high demand on the market. Since the mainland route was opened,

After that, most of the limited output of the Chuanchuan Group was shipped to the mainland for sale, which is more profitable. In Yazhou, which is very close to Victory Port, it became a scarce product. Not to mention the sharp rise in prices, many things were at a priceless market.

state.

Under this situation, if you don’t have a special relationship, you basically shouldn’t try to get Haihan’s products. Even merchants like “Furuifeng” and “Anfuxing” that have business dealings with Haihan are not aware of the current shortage.

There is no solution to the situation - just having money is useless. Now the Haihan people can't come up with anything to sell. What can be done if there is no supply of goods?

Luo Shengdong is a little different. He is the type of Ming Dynasty official who can be "fighted for" in the eyes of the Executive Committee. When necessary, the Executive Committee will also give him some impetus from behind - for example, providing him with a small amount of money.

Haihan products allowed him to establish his own personal connections in Yazhou.

This approach quickly achieved results. Now among the powerful circles in Yazhou City, Luo Ba from Shuizhai is somewhat famous. Even Jin Yiwei and Dongchang Fanzi who are stationed in Yazhou are now starting to

Become brothers with him. There is no other reason. None of these privileged department personnel stationed in Yazhou are willing to stay in such a remote area, but if they want to be transferred back to the mainland to enjoy happiness, there are only two ways. One is to make meritorious service and receive awards; the other is to

Bribe your boss.

The special nature of Yazhou as a place of exile greatly reduces the possibility of receiving awards for meritorious service. It is full of prisoners who have been exiled from all over the country. Is it possible to find a crime and arrest these people and sentence them again? This is done

I'm afraid that the result will only be an angry rebuke from the boss for being incompetent. Then the only way left is to bribe the boss, but Yazhou is a poor place and has no specialties. Isn't it possible to send coconuts and homespun cloth to the bosses in Qiongzhou and Guangzhou?

However, since the appearance of the Haihan people, this situation has changed. The new products continuously introduced by the Haihan people are in short supply on the market, and these rare gadgets are perfect for giving gifts. At present, Yazhou Commercial Bank is completely out of stock.

Under the circumstances, the local Jinyiwei and Dongchang fans were eyeing Luo Shengdong's path.

Of course, there were people with ulterior motives among them, who suggested that Luo Shengdong and the Haihan people should be arrested and their goods confiscated directly. However, the person who came up with this bad idea was quickly dealt with internally. According to the current situation,

The Haihan people have now gathered thousands of people in Yulin. In other words, there are thousands of people who rely on the Haihan people for food. With the few manpower in Yazhou, even if Jinyiwei and Dongchang join forces, they may not be able to arrest people in Yulin.

No reply. This worry is not unfounded. From the inspection department sent there two months ago, no one from the entire team has returned to Yazhou during this period, except for Shuizhai who regularly "inspects Yulin"

Apart from the safety letters brought back by the warships, these people seemed to have disappeared out of thin air.

Jin Yiwei and Dongchang are not all fools. They just feed on intelligence. Of course, they can more or less detect that there is something wrong with the Han people in Haihai, but so what? The Han people in Hainan are just a group of businessmen. They did not kill officials and rebel.

, they are just selling some rare gadgets through various channels. It is said that the Haihan people have a militia group of hundreds of people in Yulin. No one is willing to go out of their way to cause trouble for the Haihan people, let alone these two yamen.

Up and down, who dares to say that they have not taken advantage of the cliff-based office?

In addition to the two secret service agencies, Luo Shengdong's prestige in Shuizhai is also getting higher and higher. Ever since Luo Shengdong got He Shenjiang the one-foot square mirror requested by his sixth aunt, He Shenjiang has almost become

He treated Luo Shengdong as a confidant. However, due to the abnormal system of Yazhou Water Village, there was no guard under the generals. With the arrangement of General Manager Qian, Luo Shengdong, the general manager, was vaguely under one person, and the entire village was under the control of one person.

With the taste, all the warships in the village can be dispatched without even needing a warrant from the general. The group of people who followed Luo Shengdong have been running a private salt business for several months, and now everyone is making money.

He received a lot of money, which also brought him more followers.

Regarding the current situation, Luo Shengdong himself knew quite well. He knew that all this was thanks to the Haihan people. If the Haihan people cut off his supply of goods, the power he had established in Yazhou Water Village would soon be destroyed.

When the tree falls and the monkeys scatter, the personal connections in Yazhou City will be quickly severed, and the Haihan people will quickly support Luo Shengdong No. 2 to take his place - there are probably already a lot of people who want to kick him out and replace him.

.

Every time he went to Victory Port and saw the speed of development there, Luo Shengdong was completely unable to think of confrontation. Luo Shengdong also went to Victory Port half a month ago, and at that time he happened to see at least 100 people piled on the pier.

There are twenty or thirty Haihan artillery pieces and boxes of matchlocks piled up like a hill, and these things are being carried and loaded into a fortune ship by the workers. Luo Shengdong’s immediate boss during the labor camp was Ren.

Liang explained to him very lightly that these arms were being sold to a certain country in Southeast Asia. Luo Shengdong was a smart man, and of course he could understand the implication of Ren Liang's words - since Haihan could sell these weapons to the outside world, he was sure

Already possessing stronger military force. Thinking of the continuous forts under construction on both sides of the Victory Harbor Fjord, Luo Shengdong knew that the current armaments of the Haihan people far exceeded the local Ming army, no, even the entire Qiongzhou

If all the more than 10,000 troops stationed on the island were put together, they would probably not be able to penetrate this harbor, which was in a deserted state half a year ago.

The only good thing is that, at least so far, the Haihan people do not seem to be planning to attack Yazhou with force. If that day really comes, Luo Shengdong will be very hesitant whether he should be loyal to the Ming Dynasty or be aware of current affairs.

Join the invincible Haihan people as early as possible. But no matter what, building a good relationship with the Haihan people now can always leave a way out for the future. Therefore, Luo Shengdong went to the Cliff Office almost every day when he was not on duty.

Sometimes, according to the instructions of the Cliff Office, several local officials will be specially invited to go with them.

According to the national leaders of later generations, it is reasonable to say that Tao Donglai's whereabouts should be kept secret. However, after He Xi left, the vigilance of the people in the Cliff Office in terms of intelligence security has indeed dropped a lot. After receiving the telegram information, the responsible person

Qiu Yuan, who received Luo Shengdong, did not shy away from his presence as an outsider, and began to order the people to buy groceries, clean, and prepare carriages and horses.

When Luo Shengdong asked, he heard that it was Tao Donglai who was coming to Yazhou today, and he quickly asked Qiu Yuan for the reception task. Luo Shengdong had frequent contacts with Haihan, and he knew Haihan's power structure very well, and

Tao Donglai is undoubtedly the core leader of this group of Haihan people. I'm afraid it would be better to flatter him than spend a month in the Cliff Office. So Luo Shengdong invited Qiu Yuan to go back to Shuizhai and order a Cangshan boat.

The boat went to the mouth of the Ningyuan River to wait for Tao Donglai's arrival.

After the two ships approached, everyone on the "Speed" could clearly see Luo Shengdong and Qiu Yuan standing on the bow of the Cangshan ship waving. Tao Donglai did not feel that Luo Shengdong's greeting was meaningful.

Something was wrong, so he and Tom Wang transferred to the Cangshan boat, while the "Speed" was anchored in the shallow water near the shore outside the entrance of the Ningyuan River.

During the chat, Tao Donglai also revealed intentionally or unintentionally the fruitful results of this trip-tens of thousands of taels of arms were sold, and thousands of immigrants would arrive in Victory Port by boat in the near future.

After hearing this, Luo Shengdong sighed: "Since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, there have been very few such large-scale sales of weapons to foreign countries. In addition, with the surrender of the overseas people, what President Tao did is really the first of its kind in the history of this dynasty!"

Tao Donglai smiled and said: "Mr. Luo Ba, we are not Ming people, and what we do is not for the Ming Dynasty."

Luo Shengdong responded awkwardly: "Yes, yes, I made a mistake!"

This time Luo Shengdong did not accidentally make a mistake, but deliberately tested it. Although Tao Donglai revealed very little information, Luo Shengdong believed that what he said was the truth because he also happened to see the scene of Haihan arms being loaded onto the ship.

Haihan now has various profitable businesses, and has been continuously introducing immigrants to enrich the population of Victory Port. Although Luo Shengdong is not on the intelligence front, he has actually been very sensitive to smelling a hint of danger.

Although Tao Donglai has expressed his attitude more than once that Haihan will never integrate into the Ming Dynasty, Luo Shengdong still wants to confirm again and again whether his attitude will change. But it is obvious that as Haihan

As the Han power grew stronger and stronger, Tao Donglai had no intention of surrendering to the Ming Dynasty.

Tao Donglai's statement made Luo Shengdong a little worried, because according to the current development of the situation, it seems that the decline of Yazhou City and the rise of Shengli Port are only a matter of time. In the past month or two, there have been many incidents before

Immigrants who moved to Victory Port returned home to visit relatives, and used their own experiences as illustrations to drive more people to move to Victory Port. Many people did not even wait for the ships that regularly came to Nanshan Town to ship immigrants, but went directly by land.

Go to Port of Victory. This situation has begun to be fundamentally different from the initial Yazhou immigration situation.

At first, the immigrants recruited by the Yazhou Residential Office in Yazhou were poor people who had lost their fields and had no skills to survive. In order to survive, these people had to grasp the life-saving straw of Haihan. But recently, more and more people have

After hearing about the superior living conditions in Victory Port, many people were moved and began to move their families. Most of these people were farmhands and long-term workers for local powerful people. Although they did not have land themselves, they could still make ends meet by doing farm work for their masters.

Live on. The departure of these people has caused small-scale farmland to be abandoned outside Yazhou City, and the reduction in food production is bound to create a new group of unemployed people after the recent autumn harvest.

In addition, the number of craftsmen in Yazhou City is also gradually decreasing. Only one of the original five blacksmith shops is still open. Carpenters, plasterers, bamboo craftsmen, etc. have also begun to disappear from Yazhou City unknowingly. Others may

I don’t know, but Luo Shengdong knows very well that these people basically went to Shengli Port. And the impact of this migration of craftsmen on the local area is particularly obvious-the door of Luo Shengdong’s future father-in-law’s house was broken for four days

, I searched all over the city but couldn't find a carpenter to repair it. In the end, I had no choice but to put it on the shelf. Luo Shengdong called two shipwrights from the water village to repair it.

If this continues, within a year or two, Yazhou will probably be nothing more than an empty city. Except for the prisoners in various yamen and Yazhou jails, most of the others will move to Shengli, which is more lively and has more convenient life.

Settle in Hong Kong. And people with this idea include Luo Shengdong himself. He knows that the Haihan people have planned a large commercial area in Victory Port, and there are already merchants enclosing land there and preparing to build commercial facilities.

. Before the land prices in Victory Port rise, Luo Shengdong is also planning to buy a piece of land there. As for the specific business, we can wait and see, and occupy the land first.

Of course, Luo Shengdong also knew that his worries were unnecessary. This was supposed to be a matter for the magistrates of Zhizhou and Tongzhi. As a small naval commander, he did not even have the slightest say in local governance. Since the adults

There was no need to be in a hurry, so why should he be too fussy? For the moment, he should settle down and make a fortune first. Luo Shengdong put aside his distracting thoughts and turned to Tao Donglai to inquire about the supply of several commodities that were in short supply recently.

The Cangshan boat sailed upstream at an extremely slow speed. It took a full hour to finally arrive at the dock in the north of Yazhou City. Maliko, Mu Xiabai and Feng Annan from the Yazhou Office had been waiting on the shore for a long time.

After exchanging a few pleasantries, they set out on their way home. Tao Donglai also took this opportunity to experience an original human-powered sedan. Luo Shengdong knew that Tao Donglai must have something important to do when he came to the cliff, and he would not do anything on such an occasion.

It was a bit inappropriate to forcefully drill in, so I immediately said goodbye and led the team back to the water village.

After the group returned to the Cliff Office, Zhang Guang and Zhao Xiaoruo, who were staying at home, also came out to meet them. Then several errand servants from the Cliff Office all came out to pay homage to the head of Haihan whom they met for the first time.

The topic at the reception banquet will naturally not leave the business negotiations in Vietnam, and the huge gains achieved by this trip made everyone at the Cliff Office also very happy. Maliko smiled and said: "Mr. Tao, this time we will bring immigrants

The problem is solved, and the pressure on our side will be much less. Although the number of immigrants in Yazhou has increased a lot recently, if it continues at this rate, I am afraid that in another half a year, there will be no immigrants left in Yazhou.

Who can move?"

Tao Donglai shook his head and said: "Neither Yazhou nor Vietnam is our final solution to solve the source of immigrants. In the short term, we will focus on Hainan Island and surrounding areas. In the long term, we still have to focus on the mainland. Hainan

The local population is limited, so needless to say, but what is the biggest problem that Vietnamese immigrants will bring to us, have you ever thought about it?"

Malico tentatively replied: "Population ratio?"

"That's right." Tao Donglai nodded and said: "If we follow the current plan and introduce 30,000 to 40,000 Vietnamese immigrants in the next year, this number will greatly exceed the local naturalized population. Although in our eyes

It seems that all naturalized citizens will be treated equally, but ordinary people may not all think so. We must consider in advance the impact and impact that the large-scale immigration of foreign populations may have on the lives of local naturalized people, otherwise there may be problems in the future

There are many problems that are difficult to solve. Xenophobia is nothing new.”
Chapter completed!